After Aperture
by Stitchar
Summary: All he ever remember from his life, his mother was a mystery: never speaks, acts as if the world is against her, and sometimes stare at the items she had kept when she thinks he was in bed. When she passed, she passed her items to him and now he can finally unravel the mysteries his mother kept. One-shot. Not sure to continue.


AN: I have read a lot of 'After Aperture' ideas where Chell escaped from GLaDOS and how she was living her escaped life. I got interested and went right on it-One-shot of course. I'm not sure if I can continue this one...

Enjoy.

* * *

He had received a letter from his father-telling him a graving news that his mother had passed away not too long ago. The letter said she had passed away last night-but by judging on when it was sent, it had been a week.

He wasn't sure what to feel about this-normally, a son would cry his heart out when he learned one of his parents died, but never him. He barely cried since he doesn't really know his own mother very much-she pretty much acted like a stranger to him ever since he was little.

Never less, he left his own home and drove back to his parents house to help his father to get ready for the funeral. Even burying her, both of his parents are real close so he had to be with his father to get past through the ceremony.

The funeral was long and tense-and the only people that came were only his father's side of family and family friends-which wasn't much. He tried to keep his emotions at bay as he overhears other people's whispering words.

_"Thank goodness she's gone."_

_"I never understand how he sees in her."_

_"I didn't liked her that much..."_

His mother was quite an outsider in the whole family-who'm to blame her he thought as he held his father from crumbling into pieces. After all, as far as his own memory can serve-she never had relatives, no friends, no nothing before she met his father.

He never know how they met-but he can guess that they both met at a small cafe, like any cliche romance novel. Get married, have a child and grow old-that's it.

-.-

With funeral all done and placing his mother to rest, he drove both his father back to his parents' house to do some few cleaning-his father suggested it.

Once they had reached to the house, they began to work-putting his mother's cloths, accessories, anything that reminds his father of her was put away in the attic except for pictures; his father refuses to throw them away.

"Ah, Wheatley," his father called, "There is something I need to give it to you."

He flinched when he heard his name. Weatley-in prospect, is a unique name, but he hated it. It reminded him too much of a wheat when you make bread (or was it something else-he can't be sure.), so all his family and friends called him something else of a nickname except for his parents.

His father liked the name because his mother suggested it-why Wheatley he'll never know.

"What is it?" He asked, as he saw his father walking up from the basement, carrying a large box that seemed too heavy for his father to carry, "I hope it's not albums."

"Oh, no. No." His father chuckled as he set the box down, which made a loud 'thump' noise to tell Wheatley that the items in the box wasn't too heavy by it's own appearance. He watched closely as his father opened the lid of the box that he had carried from the basement.

The items that were inside surprised him.

There was another box-but much smaller than the cardboard so it can fit inside. The color was both grey, white and pink with pink corners and heart on every surface with white strips going through the surface. Next to the cube were two boot like shoes that had flat, metal sheet that reminded him of Flex-foot that the disabled runners would wear. Another one that was next to those weird boots (He wasn't sure what to call them) was a futuristic gun, with black metal claws curling in at the nozzle of the gun and all white metal (or was it plastic?) covering the trigger.

"You're mother wanted you to keep them." He looked up from the box to see his father smiling sadly at him, "She knew she's going to pass away so she told me to pass this along to you."

"Wait, mom _told_ you?"

"Well, more like wrote, but you get the picture right?"

Wheatley shook his head, but closed the box up so he can look at the items more carefully. After all, his mother seemed to trust him enough to pass these strange items-eventhough she acted like a stranger to him.

-.-

After helping his father to clean-up any of his mother's belongings (There wasn't much since she didn't ask for anything more), he drove himself back home through the dark night as he thought on the items that his deceased mother had passed to him.

They were strange, these items that he had seen in the box back home seemed to yell 'futuristic' and it couldn't help but bother him that whatever these items are-they are what had created his mother today.

He always remember his mother was a mystery-never talks, never reveals. He always find her inspiring since she doesn't seem to give a crap about what other people said about her. But it always bothers him when his mother rarely speaks, doesn't seem to give affections, and looked like as if she had been to a war and had seen the horrors of it.

It seemed that tonight, he's going to unravel that mystery that his mother had kept for years.

As he had finally reached to his home, it was nearly midnight, but it was okay for him-tomorrows Saturday so he had no work. He quickly took his mother's box out from his car and placed the said box in the living room after he entering in his home. Knowing it's going to take long, he helped himself some coffee to help him stay awake.

He opened the box, took the items out and laid them on the living room floor.

The cube, the boots, the futuristic gun, and a pair of clothing he had found in the bottom of the box were now laid across from him. He wasn't sure what these items were to his mother but he won't let this opportunity to waste.

He first went to the cube, he cautiously touched at the rough surface of the huge cube, hoping it won't break. He wasn't sure what the cube was used for, but whatever it was-his mother seemed to have cared for it by judging how dirty the cube was and evidence that she had attempted it to clean.

He poked at it, but didn't seem to do anything. He stared at it for a while and picked it up when he learned it won't do anything to him. Much to his surprise-it was light, not feather light, but like cardboard with papers staked inside light. He temped to throw it, but decided against it as he doesn't want his house to be broken in pieces.

Placing the cube down, he looked at the strange boots. The boots were weird in his point of view, it was like high heeled boots he had seen other girls wearing it, but without the heels and only had metal prongs to support it. He tested it if it can support itself and much to his surprise, the strange boots still stayed upright-which was impossible since he had learned about how boots need support on the heel.

Wherever his mother came from-those producers of the boots must be genius enough where to put support for the wearer to balance. He checked the metal to discover that it can bend easily-easily like those Flex-Foot he had seen in the olympics.

Not finding anything that would tell of his mother's mystery, he decided to head on the next item-which was a futuristic gun. He picked it up and studied at the design. The gun was all black with white covering the base and the trigger, small, black writing printed on the white sheet like metal-saying 'Aperture' on it.

_'Aperture?'_ Wheatley thought as he reread the word, _'What is that?'_

Whatever this Aperture is-it was a place where his mother came from. Was it an secret orphanage that does experiments? A factory? Secret society? Military? It's a place he'll never know. After all, he never even heard of it either.

Whatever this gun is, it must've used for military use since it is created like a weapon. However, he wasn't sure how to activate it.

He placed his right hand on the holster and suddenly, the small black metal that was on the white metal, started to glow blue. Wheatley blinked as he looked at the mystery gun.

_'Doesn't look like it's going to shoot bullets...'_ He thought as he looked around to shoot someplace, _'but can't be too sure if it's going to suck me in.'_

Debating on what to do with the activated gun, he decided to take a risk and hid behind a sofa in case he was sucked in by this 'weapon'. He aimed the gun at the wall and pulled the trigger.

Much to his surprise and amazement, the gun shot out the blue energy and plastered itself against the wall. It didn't suck him in, it didn't do anything, just planted on the wall doing nothing. He looked down at the gun to realize that the gun had changed it's color. Instead of glowing blue, it was now glowing orange.

Finding this strange, he decided to shoot someplace again to see what it'll do. He shoot it few inches away from the blue glowing energy and pulled the trigger again. The orange energy shot out from the gun and once it had touched the wall, it seemed to had done the affect to the blue energy because it opened it's own surface and he wasn't staring at the wall anymore.

"My wall!" He exclaimed, "What the fuck just happened to my wall?"

He nearly dropped the gun, but held it firmly since he doesn't know the effects it would do to him and his home. Despite how shocking that the gun had somehow made a hole on his wall (he felt stupid on pointing that thing to his wall), he was still curious on how it would show the sofa from the hole like it was a mirror.

He stood up from his spot and cautiously walked toward it. He heard a faint hum from the large, glowing blue hole and took his hand out, afraid on what he'll touch.

His hand felt nothing but air, and when he looked at the orange hole next to the blue one, he saw his hand appearing from the second hole. He jerked his hand back, trying to digest on what he had just saw.

It was nearly similar to portal but in an alteration way. He remembered on reading few fantasy books that includes on portal or teleportation as anyone would say. If he can remember, he used to watch sci-fi movies with his mother and seen his mother shook her head in disgust whenever it was about portals.

Now he sees why.

Deciding to try again, he placed his hand though, making sure it was safe for him walk through. Once he knew second time it won't do anything, he stepped his foot over the blue hole and went though, seeing himself facing at his sofa in the living room.

It felt weird, but at the same time he finds it fascinating. Hard to believe this was his mother's secret.

Deciding he had enough fun with the gun, it took him hours to figure out on how to close the portal as he learned that he need to another energy at one of the hole to completely close it and he was relieved to see his solid wall again.

Placing the gun down, he looked at the last item in the mix. It was clothing that his mother kept-orange jumpsuit with white tank top that had the familiar word 'Aperture' written on it. He wasn't sure what these clothes are for but he knew that his mother must've worked for Aperture or whatever the place was.

Deciding that he had seen enough, he picked his mother's belongings and placed them back in the box, being careful not to break them. He folded his mother's work clothes (He decided to call that since it seemed appropriate), the Portal gun and her boots.

Just as he picked up his mother's strange cube, one side of the cube opened suddenly and he saw something fell out from it. Curious, he closed the cube's recent discovered secret lid and picked the said fallen item up.

It was a small book, but had written words scrawled messily like a small child had taken a pen and wrote on top of it. It was hard, but he was able to understand that the word said 'journal' and it didn't take long for him to learn that this journal was written by his mother.

Other items now forgotten, he sat himself back on the sofa with the cardboard box next to him, coffee also forgotten as he flipped to the first page. The first page was messily written, but according to the date that was written, she must've wrote this book before she met his father.

He skimmed through the pages to see how far his mother wrote and judging how much it was written-he was surprised that his mother had written the book all the way to the end of the page. He sighed as he went back to the first page.

_'It's going to be a long night.'_


End file.
